Friday, November 30, 2012

In the previous post, I outlined the life cycle of the Polis
and included a chronology showing the significant events it its history. The
chronology had one notation that was not mentioned in the post (Solon), so I am
going to correct that omission here.

Solon was one of the most important figures of his time and
on a short list of the greatest Greek politicians. He was an educated
aristocrat, successful businessman, and poet. According to Plutarch, Solon had
four character traits seldom found in one man: patriotism, integrity, political
genius, and intelligence. And we must not leave out ambition – he wanted the
job of saving the Athenian state.

As previously
discussed, the Period of Tyrants dated from ~ 650 B.C. to 510 B.C. when Hippias
was expelled from Athens. Solon was active during the middle of this period.

In 632 B.C, the opportunist Cylon tried to establish himself
as a tyrant of, but failed. He had achieved victory at the Olympic Games and
used his fame to gather supporters and take control of the Acropolis. Lured out
of hiding with the promises of a pardon, Cylon and his followers were murdered
by members of the aristocratic Alcmeonidae family. Athens was not ready to
tolerate a tyrant.

A decade later in 621 B.C. the citizens of Athens asked a
legislator named Draco to codify Athenian law for the first time. The results
of his work were unduly harsh specifying the death penalty for even minor
offences.

“…he considered these lesser crimes to deserve it, and he had
no greater punishment for more important ones."

By 600 B.C, Athenian politics was in complete disarray. The
last decades had seen their pottery trade fall behind its Corinthian
competition, and the aristocratic class had become more ruthless. Poor farmers
became serfs of the rich when they could not pay their debts, and the landless
were enslaved and sold abroad. Territorial groups could not be controlled by
the weak central government.

As Plutarch tells it, “The state was divided into as many
factions as there were parts of the country, for the Diakrii, or mountaineers,
favored democracy; the Pedioei, oligarchy; while those who dwelt along the
seashore, called Parali, preferred a constitution midway between these two
forms, and thus prevented either of the other parties from carrying their
point. Moreover, the state was on the verge of revolution, because of the
excessive poverty of some citizens, and the enormous wealth of others, and it
appeared that the only means of putting an end to these disorders was by
establishing an absolute despotism.”

Enter Solon.

Again Plutarch sets the stage.

“In this position of affairs, the most sensible men in
Athens perceived that Solon was a person who shared the vices of neither
faction, as he took no part in the oppressive conduct of the wealthy, and yet
had sufficient fortune to save him from the straits to which the poor were
reduced. In consequence of this, they begged him to come forward and end their
disputes.

But Phanias of Lesbos says that Solon deceived both parties,
in order to save the state, promising the poor a redistribution of lands, and
the rich a confirmation of their securities. However, Solon himself tells us
that it was with reluctance that he interfered, as he was threatened by the
avarice of the one party, and the desperation of the other. He was chosen Archon
next after Philombrotus (594 B.C.), to act as an arbitrator and lawgiver at
once, because the rich had confidence in him as a man of easy fortune, and the
poor trusted him as a good man. It is said also that a saying which he had let
fall some time before, that "equality does not breed strife," was
much circulated at the time, and pleased both parties, because the rich thought
it meant that property should be distributed according to merit and desert,
while the poor thought it meant according to rule and measure. Both parties
were now elate with hope, and their
leaders urged Solon to seize the supreme power in the state, of which he
was practically possessed, and make himself king.”

Solon consulted the Oracle at Delphi which said,

“Take thou the helm, the vessel guide,

Athens will rally to thy side.”

But he refused the monarchy saying in his own verse,

"Not a clever man was Solon, not a calculating mind,

For he would not take the kingdom, which the gods to him
inclined,

In his net he caught the prey, but would not draw it forth
to land,

Overpowered by his terrors, feeble both of heart and hand;

For a man of greater spirit would have occupied the throne,

Proud to be the Lord of Athens, though 'twere for a day
alone,

Though the next day he and his into oblivion were
thrown."

As senior Archon, Solon chose to proceed quietly to
administer so as to

Not disturb
or overset the state

Because if he did he would not have sufficient power to
re-constitute and organize again. To rule properly, Solon thought it best to “Combine
force and justice together”.

So he started changing Laws. What laws? Nearly all of them.

Solon cancelled all debts and obligations in Athens. He repealed
the dreaded Draconian criminal code and substituted his own. Then he wrote a
new constitution. Those born of free Attican parents would become citizens of Athens.

The populace would be divided into four classes based on
wealth with the top three classes eligible for the magistracies formerly only
available to the aristocrats. The lowest class was barred from magistracies but
allowed to serve on juries. Solon also made decisions of the magistrate’s court
subject to appeal to a special court (Heliaia) which had no judge.

And on he went. He suppressed dowries, barred men from
speaking evil of the dead, allowed wills to give property to a friend if no
relative was available, regulated the journeys of women, encouraged trade,
barred exports except for oil, and allowed foreigners to become Athenian citizens.

Solon was no democrat,
because he believed in the reality of the distribution of wealth. Anticipating
the Roman Republic, which was ninety
years in the future, he rejected equality – choosing instead a way of creating
a balance between the classes. He believed the creation of a middle class would
neutralize the conflict between the upper and lower, precisely the role the
Knights would take in Republican Rome.

Solon’s year in power came to an end with passions high, yet
there was enough support in each class for his reforms to keep the Polis
stable. He ordered the new laws to be in force for one hundred years, and then,
to the surprise of many, resigned his post and left Athens for ten years.

The balance of forces did not last. Returning to Athens as an old man in
561, Solon witnessed Peisistratus become a tyrant. He died two years later and
his ashes were scattered around the Island of Salamis. When the last tyrant,
Hippias, was exiled in 510 B.C, the first act of the Athenian government was to
re-institute the laws of Solon.

1 comment:

You forgot that Solon had help from Epimenides, a Cretan Sage. Socrates, himself, outs Solon as an "disciple, adherent, and follower" of the Spartans. Solon copied mixed government form from the Doric Greeks. Epimenides was a Dorian, as was the Delphic Oracle was Doric.